Via Domini 
 
TO MY DEAD 
 
 
 J. P. Wl D N E Y 
 1903 
 
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Vanitas Vanitatum 
 Homo 
 
 The gathered years grow heavy, and the way 
 
 Weary to tired feet ; the windowed eyes 
 
 Are slowly darkening with the waning light. 
 
 The sound of grinding, low within the mill. 
 
 For the worn wheels are slowing to their cease. 
 
 The housetop parapet is hedged with fears. 
 
 The bowing head is whitening, as the tree 
 
 When springtime blossoms crown the almond boughs. 
 
 The slim cicada, on its shoulder perch. 
 
 Is grown a burden grievous to be borne 
 
 By that bent frame. Desire itself is gone. 
 
 Because that man is nearing to his end. 
 
 The silver cord is loosening ; and the bowl. 
 
 The golden bowl, the pitcher by the spring 
 
 Of living waters, topple to their doom. 
 
 The wheel that by the cistern's brink has stood. 
 
 To hoist from its cool depths, leans to its fall. 
 
 And in the street the mourner's cry is heard 
 
 For man that goeth down to his long home. 
 
Vox Lamentationis 
 
 Ai ! Ai ! Ai ! 
 For the dead that come not back : 
 And the light of life extinguished 
 As the flame of the burnt out taper ; 
 And. the lonely house ; and the shadows 
 That gather and darken at nightfall. 
 
 Ai ! Ai ! Ai ! 
 For the days that are no more : 
 For the lonely ways, and the heartache : 
 And the unshed tears of the mourner : 
 And eyes that are parched with sorrow. 
 
 Ai ! Ai ! Ai ! 
 
Carmen Ventulorum 
 
 **He giveth unto His beloved sleep." 
 After the wearing toil of human life 
 Gently the earth taketh at last to keep 
 The weary ones. 
 
 No more they know of strife: 
 No more to them are days with pain and sorrow rife. 
 
 No more are days of toil and nights of pain : 
 No more they labor ever sorely, lest 
 Their work may be undone when night again 
 Cometh to end the day. 
 
 In gentle rest 
 The sleep of a great peace the grief worn eyes hath 
 pressed. 
 
 The pain that cometh unto mortal man. 
 The sore unrest as of the groaning deep. 
 They sadly knew : sternly the race they ran 
 Unto the end. 
 
 And now the willows keep 
 A tender watch alway above their dreamless sleep. 
 
 Low in the grass, with tear stained faces pressed 
 Amid the pansies' bloom, we lie and weep 
 Upon their graves. And still the breezes rest 
 Not from their song : 
 
 they alway softly keep 
 Singing, *'He giveth unto His beloved sleep." 
 
Mortuus Homo, Rursum Vivat? 
 
 Man that is born of woman's pain 
 Hath but short life : then dies again ; 
 Nor long abideth in his place : 
 The earth forgetteth soon his face. 
 He Cometh up, and is cut oiF 
 As flowers by the mower's swath. 
 He fleeth as a shadow vain 
 Of passing cloud upon the plain. 
 
 If a man die. 
 If low he lie 
 Beneath the earth 
 Free from his pain. 
 Lives he again 
 As at his birth? 
 
 Deep buried in the earth, and far at sea 
 
 Hid by the waves, the dead ones scattered be. 
 
Miserere Nostri, Deus 
 
 Daily we toil and go our labored way; 
 
 And daily with sore pain and weariness. 
 
 And sad distress. 
 
 We turn us to the heavens dull and gray. 
 
 And moan and pray. 
 
 And cry, with lifted hands, our bitter cry. 
 
 And then 
 
 We turn us back again. 
 
 Hopeless, 
 
 In pain. 
 
 Scared by the leaden sky that answers not. 
 
 And moan, **Hath God forgot?" 
 
 The bitter cry 
 
 Dieth within our throats, and silently 
 
 We take again the weight of toil and strife 
 
 Upon us ; and the day. 
 
 The woesome day, the day with sorrow rife. 
 
 Wears slowly by. 
 
 And when the darkness falls. 
 
 Through all the lonely watches of the night 
 
 We pray the morning light 
 
 May hasten, for the fear 
 
 Of loneliness is on us, and the drear 
 
 Still midnight, with a hushed and bated breath. 
 
 Whispers of pain and death ; 
 
 Whispers of them who lie 
 
 Where the sable raven calls. 
 
 And the cease and end of life. 
 
Dixit Insipiens 
 
 And then we sicken ; 
 And the place that knew us knoweth us no more. 
 
 And then we die. 
 
 And the stranger passing hy 
 
 Heareth the voice of mourning in our door ; 
 
 And seeth the sable garments and the tears ; 
 
 And seeth, mayhap, a grief that hath no tears. 
 
 But turneth stricken. 
 
 And the scoffer crieth from the street, 
 
 **Aha ! 
 Death is the end of all — of all. Aha ! 
 He trusted, and his trust was vain. 
 He trusted, and the reed again 
 Is broken. 
 Is broken. 
 
 To eat, and drink, and have no care is best ; 
 And the dance and jocund jest. 
 And the wine cup and the song. 
 Deus non est. 
 
 Lo, as the beasts we die. 
 Or the grain of buried corn : 
 And the grave is strong and deep. 
 We drink to the grim old grave ; 
 To the yawning, hungry grave ; 
 To the grave, and endless sleep. 
 Death is the end of all — of all. Aha ! " 
 
Resurgam 
 
 Is it as naught that the waving grain 
 
 Beareth and giveth at last of its fruitage? 
 
 Is it in vain that the dews and rain 
 
 Have fed it, and all the summer days 
 
 With tender eye hath the loving sun 
 
 Smiled as a mother anear her babe, 
 
 Smiled and looked with fruitful gaze 
 
 Upon the earth ? And lo ! 
 
 A wonder the cornfields know ; 
 
 And the husbandman cometh forth from the village 
 
 And reapeth, and eateth and is made glad : — 
 
 Is it in vain ? 
 
 Nay, it is not in vain. 
 
 And death? — 
 
 Nay, not for the reaper's sickle. 
 
 Nor for the gleaner, nor the threshing floor, 
 
 Groweth the corn that, full and overripe, 
 
 Bendeth to earth. For this it lived and grew — 
 
 For this, that dying it might anew 
 
 Give life and strength ; and evermore 
 
 Upon the earth 
 
 Should death and birth 
 
 Be not as a thing of chance, and fickle. 
 
 No ! not in vain 
 
 Liveth and dieth the grain. 
 
 When falleth the golden corn 
 
 It liveth again, new-born. 
 
Jubilate Deo 
 
 Gloria, gloria in excelsis! Lo, 
 
 The scoffer is confounded ! Oh, 
 
 We know that not in vain 
 
 Amid our pain 
 
 We lifted up our voices ; and our tears 
 
 Through all the bitter years 
 
 Were wasted not. Again 
 
 Dawn of a mighty gladness draweth nigh. 
 
 At last, at last we cry. 
 
 Triumphant through the years. 
 
 Oh! 
 
 Gloria, gloria in excelsis ! 
 
 Lo! 
 
 Unto earth 
 
 A hope hath birth. 
 
 And the peace of God, and pity of His kiss. 
 
 Cantet mundus ! 
 Jubilet profundus [ 
 Gaudeamus ! gaudeamus ! 
 Te Deum laudamus ! 
 Jubilate, jubilate Deo ! 
 
".Et Cantabant Quasi 
 Canticum Novum" 
 
 As the voice of many waters 
 
 That comes up from the sea, 
 
 As the sound from the far-off sand wastes 
 
 When the desert wind sweeps free 
 
 Through the loneness of the midnight. 
 
 They sang triumphantly. 
 
 They sang, with the harpers harping ; 
 And the song rose with a swell 
 That spread to the deepest heavens : 
 And lo, the wondrous spell 
 Was resting upon the nations ; 
 But the song no man could tell. 
 
 The thrill of a mighty gladness 
 Like a subtile current ran 
 Through the measures of the music 
 That hushed, and then began. 
 And swelled to the farthest heavens 
 As the sweep of the hurricane. 
 
 And the hearts of the nations hungered 
 That the voicing they might know. 
 And the harping of the harpers 
 That ever to and fro 
 Through the ages swelled and echoed. 
 As the ages come and go. 
 
 And the harpers kept a-harping. 
 
 And still the singers sang. 
 
 Till the arches of the heavens 
 
 With the mighty music rang. 
 
 Bat the song — no man could learn it. 
 
 Nor the words the singers sang. 
 
Domine, refugium fa5lus es nobis 
 a generatione in generationem 
 
16 1S04 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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